


Into the Night

by rainsonata



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Time needs to get sleep and more hugs!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22840399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainsonata/pseuds/rainsonata
Summary: Time Tracer spends another sleepless night with his ambitions set straight, but Arc Tracer disagrees. He can take care of himself, really!
Relationships: Arc Tracer/Time Tracer, Edward "Add" Grenore/Edward "Add" Grenore, Time Tracer/Arc Tracer
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	Into the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mymastermine (littlelapin)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelapin/gifts).



“You’re still up?” Arc peered into the living room.

Arc walked around with a white shirt depicting a pink cat and a pair of lavender boxers. A white fringe flopped over one side of his face as the tracer walked in to find Time occupying the loveseat in the living room.

Time sat curled up on a couch and rested his elbow over the coffee table. After scraping enough money from missions and other miscellaneous jobs around town, he and his counterparts were able to afford a small house, merging and converting two rooms into labs. The living room served as a home station for the three of them to meet at the end of the day, although Time had been spending less time there as the days dragged on and the experiments became longer. There were tests he wanted to run before taking the first leap to see if the years of research have finally paid off.

The time traveler raised his shoulders and cried in response to a pair of cold hands pressed against the nape of his neck. Time stretched his arms to untangle Arc’s arms away with blurry eyes, his face all pink and flustered. Arc pouted and crossed his arms with a small huff.

“How come when Psych does it, it’s fine?” Arc feigned sadness, “but when I do it, you pull back and act like my arms are jellyfish?”

“Psych will hug even if I tell him not to,” Time said. 

“But I can’t do it?” Arc sighed and pulled out Dynamo to show the digital display reading 2:41 AM. “Anyway, it’s late. You should sleep.” 

“That’s cute coming out of you,” Time snorted. “When did you become meticulous about sleep?”

He saw the strange places Arc had fallen asleep in, including the one time he fell asleep in the cabinet where they kept their rice. The scientist woke up in a daze, confused as to why Time made him get off so they could prepare dinner. Psych was less discreet and howled with laughter until Arc stomped his foot. It was like living with children, Time chuckled at the fond memory and smiled. 

“At least change your clothes,” Arc mumbled.

Time didn’t reply.

The time traveler sat slouched over, tucking his head in with one eye peeking past his white bangs. Time clutched his fingers around his pen as he dabbled into his journal with tired eyes. The heavy bags in his eyes were threatening to shut down as he forced themselves open with little success. He squeezed his eyes shut as he fought to squeeze out the numbers he needed for the last set of equations.

His mind spiraled down a twisted staircase of exhaustion, numbers falling past him as he closed his eyes. The codes he found in the burnt libraries in Feita, it wasn’t enough. All of them were utter trash and unworthy of being glossed over when Allegro directed him to the half-collapsed buildings buried deep in the valleys occupied by demons. Their faded pages flaked into dust as the smallest touch. The luckier ones contained codes once used in the Nasod War before the others were discovered and lit up in fear of being used to advance the Nasod race. Stupid, really. Nasods and their creators always had files backed up containing vital data and resources. 

It became uncomfortably warm where Time stood. Heat rose from where Time stood, a maze of bookcases enclaved in glass in a feeble attempt to protect them from destruction. Flames burst from behind him, eating away the pages and pages flown out, all of them depicting the same numbers and symbols in a desperate furry to be completed. Ink blotched out from the books’ contents and spilled over Time. Black ink pooled around the time traveler as he laid on the floor with his eyes staring back up to see a starry sky, unable to move. 

Glass broke from the side window. Shards went flying in his direction and crushed into millions of smaller pieces on the floor. There was the sound of a man chuckling darkly against the thin walls of the ruined building echoed around him. The shape of a man in a lab coat shifted his glasses up in a silhouette through the opaque window. 

Time crawled on his fours to stand up and gasped. A shadowed figure hunched over between the bookcases. Steam emitted from its nostrils hallmarked by electric blue fur standing up like bristles, a demon whispered about by the irrational archeologists and wary soldiers from the Feita camps. Time could only see its lower jaw lined by jagged teeth and the creature standing on hind legs.

“Time?”

He and the demon turned to the sound of his name.

“Time!”

He fluttered his eyes open to a pair of identical eyes clouded with frantic worry. Arc hovered over him and shook him by the shoulders, letting out a stream of ‘Are you ok?’ and ‘Time, I’m here’.

Time sat up to find himself cold in sweat and wrapped by a bundle of blankets. Opposite to him was a pile of blankets and pillows identical to his set up. Huh? He heard Arc’s words, but they seemed so far away. Did Arc stay with him the whole time? His eyes trailed over to the coffee table and the sheets of paper piling on the floor. The ink has dried, but he didn’t finish them…

“You were crying in your sleep,” Arc said. The researcher pressed his hand against Time’s forehead, so cool to the touch compared to the rest of Time’s body. “Was it a nightmare?”

 _Of course, it was_ , Time thought with shame. That was Father’s voice from the nightmare, his figure looming over and casting doubt into his ambition to achieve his goals. The nightmares were becoming frequent and there was no end to it. He didn’t tell Arc, of course. He didn’t want to make the other see him as incapable of sleeping through the night, but he knew Arc didn’t like it when he kept secrets from his counterpart. 

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t feel like it,” Arc sighed. Wrapping his arms around Time’s shoulders, he leaned over to kiss the top of the time traveler’s head, moving his lips and pressing them over Time’s sweaty forehead. He looked at Time and smiled, “I can make you tea. That might help you relax.”

“You don’t have to…” Time turned pinker than he already had. 

“It’s okay to take care of yourself,” Arc said with sadness. 

“I know that,” Time mumbled. 

“If you don’t…” Arc broke into a toothy grin, “I’ll paint your nails pastel!”

“If you can catch me,” Time scoffed. 

Arc was forgetting he had the ability to disappear into dimension pockets. Time looked at his alternate for a sign that the other was joking. What kind of petty threat was that? The researcher beamed and pulled out five different colors of nail polish from his oversized cat pockets - where in the name of El did he get those? The researcher snickered when he saw Time’s flabbergasted expression. 

“Psych picked them out for me,” Arc smiled. “He said he’ll help me if you try to run away. I think the pink would look good on you” 

...wonderful. 

Between that or accepting Arc’s worrywart tendencies it was obvious which one to pick. Time looked down but nodded. 

“I guess...” Time sighed, “I’ll have some tea.”

“So considerate of you,” Arc teased. “We’ve known each other for how long?”

“Four months,” Time counted with his fingers.

“Yet it’s like we’ve known each other for our whole lives,” Arc laughed.

Time snorted at the terrible joke. It was clear that Psych’s humor was rubbing off and that Arc was trying to cheer him up from the earnest smiles. They were sincere gestures, one that reminded Time of a simpler time when he was a child. He rubbed the spot where Arc had pressed his lips over, hiding his pinkened face with his long sleeves.

His mind grew alert as he watched Arc over to the kitchen. Time kneeled down to pick up the papers at his feet and frowned. Some of them were littered with drawings of cats and the demon monsters they fought in Feita. Did Arc draw these? Time sighed. His counterpart really was a child, and yet…

Time smiled when Arc returned minutes later with a platter with two identical cups and a tea kettle for the two of them to drink over a discussion about their latest research. He didn’t mind if every nightmare ended with this routine. 

**Author's Note:**

> FIC FOR BUN, FIC FOR BUN, FIC FOR BUN, FIC FOR-
> 
> HERE YOU GO, LAPIN! HERE ARE TRACER BABIES BECAUSE THEY’RE CUTE AND WE NEED MOAR OF THEM. Thank you for the fic exchange, I am always happy to accept them~


End file.
